The Offense Principle :: essays research papers

The Offense Principle claims that individual liberty is justifiably limited to prevent offensive behavior. I believe that the Offense Principle provides the correct liberty limit n principles that the state should invoke. The state should prevent behavior that causes shame, embarrassment and discomfort from pornographic material and cts.There are three conditions that are typically understood to be part of the Offense Principle. The first condition states that behavior must be significantly offensive. A person burping in public is not offensive enough to be limited under this condition. But a man urinating as he walks down the street is significantly offensive and should be limited.The second condition states that the behavior must be offensive to almost everyone. This is an important condition because I think that if only a few people find something offensive, does not constitute the act to be limited. Many people may believe that someone picking his nose in public is offensive but not almost everyone believes this act to be offensive, therefore, this act could not be limited. A man masturbating in public is offensive to almost everyone, therefore, this act should be limited.The final condition states that an offensive act should be limited if you have to go out of your way to avoid the act. An "adult" bookstore containing pornographic material should not be limited because one does not have to go out of their way to avoid the store. They simply just do not enter into the store. But a man and woman having sex on a bench should be limited because one would have to restrain from looking in certain directions to avoid seeing the offensive act.I believe that pornography in public should be banned. This includes stores that sell pornographic material. Instead, these magazines and other pornographic materials should be kept separately in a private room, where you must be an adult to enter and purchase materials. Pornographic material that is kept privately either to be sold or to be viewed or used in the privacy of one's home, should not be banned. I see absolutely no reason why a person should not be allowed to view pornographic material in the privacy of their own home.Some people may argue with me and say that the Harm Principle should be invoked by the government. They may say that pornography increases the likelihood of harm. And I somewhat agree. I am sure that some harm has occurred because of pornography.